It's Not Paranoia if Your Tech Really Is Out To Get You!

Outline/Notes

Your tech is out to get you, in a lot of different ways - but you can mitigate the pain if you think critically before you adopt a new technology, and as you continue to use it!bSome questions that I think are worth thinking critically about:

What are you going to do when your new tech breaks? When it changes? When it ceases to exist?It's going to happen. Appropriate paranoia:

Plan for failure

Keep your options open

Backup your backups

Take it personally

Own your own tech

How will you handle the unexpected? Unexpected behaviors on the part of the technology - and unexpected uses by people.Appropriate paranoia:

Look with fresh eyes - repeatedly

But the really key point is:

What are you getting? What are you giving up?Quality, preservation, access, accessibility, portability, convenience, environmental impact, social impacts...Appropriate paranoia:

Consider what you're purchasing... with what currency?

Be suspicious of free

If you're not paying for it, you're the product.

What are you getting out of the deal?

Read the terms of service. No, really, read the terms of service. No, no - really. READ THE TERMS OF SERVICE.

Related important questions and considerations

Your choices have major impacts on people other than you

Are you sharing info about other people? Are they okay with that?

Assume everything you post online is public.

Cost-benefit analyses should include non-monetary measures

Think long-term

Think about social/societal impacts

When you're done thinking about that, think about it all again, trying to put yourself in the shoes of PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT LIKE YOU.

Privacy is a social phenomenon

Individuals have social contexts - and they do matter

Technology often ignores them

When technology enables context-separations, it often only does so on some levels

Context-sensitivity is probably most important for people who have less social power, or who are in crisis or who have faced them in the past

But that's not who's making decisions about this

Every single one of these concerns is more important as a technology becomes the dominant, or even more so, the only option.

Ultimately,

If you are not sometimes choosing not to use a new tech, you are not thinking critically enough.